So what’s the big idea, Mr. Harper?

Cabinet shuffles ain’t what they used to be. Old-timers like to bore young politicos with their tales of big shuffles back in the day (‘When ministers mattered!’) — but, as with nostalgia for every golden era, aging memories and the mists of history do distort.

With the retirement of Senator Marjory LeBreton from cabinet, Jim Flaherty at Finance is the lone minister still serving in the same portfolio he held when the Harper government took office in 2006. The next longest-serving minister in the same role is Gerry Ritz, who has been at Agriculture since August 2007. Flaherty also assumes LeBreton’s former role as vice-chair of the cabinet’s Planning and Priorities Committee (P&P).

It’s also true that the shuffles that moved the inner core of any cabinet — Finance, Foreign Affairs, Treasury Board — in days gone by often signaled big changes in policy, leaders’ retirement plans and election timing. But the central figures in the senior portfolios all kept their jobs in this most recent shuffle. The changes involved the injection of new talent at more junior portfolio levels — eight new ministers, four men and four women — happy news for them, fun to handicap, but probably not consequential at the strategic level. In terms of gender balance, the new Harper cabinet has the largest number of women — 12 — of any federal government.

In every cabinet since the final Trudeau days, a thread dissected by shuffle analysts has always been future leadership implications. It is a mark of Harper’s solid hold on party loyalty and power that a need to tighten the leash on the potential ankle-biters around him — those seeking to succeed at his expense — seems once again not to have been a factor.

This is quite a fascinating dog-that-didn’t-bark element of the Harper era. Think back to the 1993-2003 decade, when Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin and their putative allies jabbed and elbowed each other endlessly at the cabinet table. Or Brian Mulroney’s unfortunate attempt to give Kim Campbell a strong cabinet platform for her launch in the dying days of his government. Or the angry departure of John Turner from cabinet in 1975, and the suspicions that wafted for years around all those thought to have been his sympathizers at the table.

This time, the only possible candidate that pundits were able to finger for a downgrade was Jason Kenney, jealously seen by some colleagues as having used his Citizenship and Immigration portfolio to build a nationwide team of ‘New Canadians’ as supporters. But the charge is dubious, given that Kenney has been tasked with delivering the government’s crucial labour market reform agenda.

Cabinet committee roles often say as much about ministers’ clout as their portfolios; Kenney remains chair of the powerful Cabinet Operations Committee (Ops). On the other hand, the skills dossier is very problematic in terms of federal-provincial relations — as the provinces made clear at the Council of the Federation meeting in July, unanimously denouncing the Canada Job Grant program as an invasion of their jurisdiction in education and training. So perhaps Kenney’s critics will turn out to be right and enjoy a chuckle over his new suicide seat at the cabinet table.

Harper’s need to promote those loyal to him — balanced by gender, region, and ethnicity — is no different from Sir John A.’s challenges nearly 150 years ago. But his focus on a crisp set of must-dos for each minister, delivered with a management consultant-like report card form for end-of-term marking, is new. Traditionally, mandate letters — welcoming messages from the PM to a new minister — started out as a cheerleading call for hard work and team solidarity, with a list of priorities that the ministry should consider. Under this government, they have morphed into a highly specific set of instructions — with the caution that freelancing and personal enthusiasms are unwelcome until this homework is successfully completed and turned in.

In other words, there are no more I-had-an-interesting-idea-suggested-by-a-business-leader-last-week discussions at cabinet committee or at the now-rare meetings of the full cabinet. Such brainstorming in the style of the Mulroney and Martin-era cabinets would earn the hapless newcomer a painful timeout in the corner of the Harper cabinet room … facing the wall.

This rigorous focus on an incremental, transactional agenda is assailed by critics and allies alike, all decrying the lack of a Big Idea that could mark the Harper decade’s legacy. Cutting taxes on hockey pads and plastic toolboxes from Canadian Tire may have been good campaign tactics; as political legacies they’re mere fodder for cartoonists.

This rigorous focus on an incremental, transactional agenda is assailed by critics and allies alike, all decrying the lack of a Big Idea that could mark the Harper decade’s legacy. Cutting taxes on hockey pads and plastic toolboxes from Canadian Tire may have been good campaign tactics; as political legacies they’re mere fodder for cartoonists. However, like Justin Bieber’s loyal fans, true-believer Harper fans say we just don’t understand the genius of his method.

Sadly, for them and for this government, that is not the way legacies are made or judged.

One might hope that adding dozens of exemptions to the tax code — to reward dieting, homework and avoiding exposing kids to the well-documented risks of communal daycare with strangers — would congeal into a widely-embraced political vision. It doesn’t. This new Harper team needs to pull off the European trade deal, the Keystone XL pipeline and some important changes to Canada’s bizarre mismatch between 300,000 immigrants and refugees per year, the highest post-secondary graduate rate in the world after South Korea, and continuing serious skill shortages in key industries and regions. Jobs without people and people without jobs.

Failure to deliver on at least two of those three big ideas will leave the Harper legacy in the same category as those of John Diefenbaker or R.B. Bennett — irrelevant to most Canadians, quickly erased by successors and a disappointment to all but the most uncritical of his aging, shrinking fan base.

A political scientist might argue that this is unfair and minimizes the long-term impact of such achievements as the Americanization of the justice system — more fixed prison terms, less flexibility for judges and prosecutors, and a consequent bump-up in Canada’s incarceration rate.

Others might point to the streamlining of environmental safety processes in assessing major projects, and claim that future pipeline successes are its reward. More likely, pipeline leaks and disasters such as Lac-Mégantic will be laid at the feet of the cutback in regulatory oversight and environmental assessment rules. But Harper understands that these, like the government’s steady evisceration of the external sources of policy counsel to the government — from the gutting of Statistics Canada’s independence to the slow strangulation of the Rights & Democracy Institute — are insider concerns, not ballot questions for voters.

Indeed, the elevation of Pierre Poilievre — probably one of the most disliked members of the 41st Parliament — and the retention of Peter Van Loan as House leader together amount to the prime minister raising a middle finger to all those critical of the thuggish communications tone this government has proudly employed from the day it swore in its first cabinet. Clearly, those in the increasingly tight circle of loyalists around Harper believe that a touch of the lash is all that is required for the increasingly restive caucus.

The deliberate leak of a memo calling for each minister’s office to create an ‘enemies list’ for incoming ministers is proof that further punishment of dissent might not be a prudent strategy for a government coming to the end of its term after nearly a decade in power. That was a knife blow delivered by an unhappy insider.

The elevation of Pierre Poilievre — probably one of the most disliked members of the 41st Parliament — and the retention of Peter Van Loan as House leader together amount to the prime minister raising a middle finger to all those critical of his thuggish communications tone.

That a government staffer aparently sabotaged the government’s best day in months is perhaps proof of the value of old-timers’ advice to the PM: When things begin to go sideways (as they always do for every long-serving government) it’s not good enough to be feared. To be respected — even loved — is far better protection in hard times than a bullwhip.

Just four ministers came into the Harper cabinet with any public profile or independent status: John Baird, Jim Flaherty, Peter MacKay and Jim Prentice. Three remain, but MacKay has been moved from Defence into the much lower-profile role of Justice. Baird was determined to remain at Foreign Affairs and his work as Harper’s go-to guy, from one portfolio to the next, meant that he could not be moved.

The rumour mill in Ottawa and Toronto had Flaherty leaving in this shuffle due to his recent health challenges, permitting a new minister to get established before the budget next spring. Now the rumours say he might step down next summer and retire to Bay Street, as Canadian finance ministers have done for a century. Yet he says he looks forward to a balanced budget by 2015, which would prove to be his political legacy should he decide not to run again.

Smart and capable newcomers like Chris Alexander at Citizenship and Immigration and Kellie Leitch at Labour will quickly come to understand that there is little ministerial independence from this command-and-control PMO.

The repercussions of the sad departure of Harper’s former chief of staff Nigel Wright, one of the few adults in PMO, are still being felt across the government. This PMO-driven government cannot function without more seasoned talent at the helm, and like Kremlinologists of old, Langevin observers are wondering whether Harper has the wisdom to reach outside his own circle to get him through the Senate expenses scandal, which became the headline of the spring sitting.

It’s fair to say that Pierre Trudeau might not have survived far beyond his 1972 near-death minority experience had he not brought in Jim Coutts as his principal secretary after regaining a majority in 1974. Derek Burney — a civil servant from Foreign Affairs, of all the unlikely places — played a similarly transformational role in a troubled Mulroney PMO from 1987 to 1989. Is there someone of that stature in the Conservative orbit — a grown-up who can bring gravitas and maturity to the PMO, someone to shape and shepherd a throne speech that will give the Conservatives a new agenda for the second half of their mandate?

Few throne speeches will have had to endure such cruel expectations as the coming outline of Harper’s vision for Canada. If it is well-received and defended in the opening of the fall session, Conservatives can breathe a little easier about the coming winter. It is, however, hard to see what magical ingredients could be added to this government’s increasingly tired political menu to achieve such a victory.

Is there someone of stature in the Conservative orbit — a grown-up who can bring gravitas and maturity to the PMO, someone to shape and shepherd a throne speech that will give the Conservatives a new agenda for the second half of their mandate?

Crime is a thoroughly beaten political horse. Further public whipping of civil servants is useful sport only for the most dedicated and angry partisans. As for ‘Canada’s Economic Action Plan’ and its multi-million dollar promotional campaign, the government’s own research revealed it had the lowest recall in the public’s memory of any program ever studied.

Being seen to have met deficit targets is one of those political lines in the sand where the outcomes may not work in your favour. If you fail, your opponents sneer. If you deliver, many citizens shrug — you’ve just done your job, after all. Squeezing spending in Defence — as the government has conceded it is doing as part of its deficit drive — angers as many prospective Tory voters as it might entice.

The government’s three big policy goals for the second half of their majority each appear to be on an uphill course. If they are able to overcome the resistance of Canadian beef farmers to making the concessions to the European Union that a Canada-EU trade deal will require, it will come at a considerable cost. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and Alberta Premier Alison Redford have signalled they will be loud and tough in their response. Quebec and Ontario will snarl about higher drug and infrastructure costs. The opposition will say that they would have delivered a better deal. Achieving the trade deal will be a serious political battle right through to the introduction of enabling legislation before the next election.

The government’s second big goal — new pipeline access for Canadian oil and gas to the U.S. and Asia — faces serious political obstacles on both sides of the border. In an interview with the New York Times on July 27, President Barack Obama pointedly said Canada “could potentially be doing more” to mitigate emissions from what he called the “tar sands”. He even questioned the number of jobs the project would create during the construction period: “The most reliable estimate is that this might create 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline — which might take a year or two, and after that we are talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people.”

That does not bode well for Keystone. And all the Canadian domestic pipeline projects, to the West and East coasts alike, face significant hurdles that come down to two words — ‘social license’, for provinces, communities and First Nations along the proposed routes.

The Harper government’s most recent effort at legacy creation — major reform of the Canadian labour market through a new skills training, immigration and productivity agenda — stalled badly mid-summer when it was summarily dismissed by the premiers. A government which started off being especially respectful of the prerogatives of provinces waded into the most dangerous swamp in Canadian politics: federal/provincial jurisdiction. By attempting — unilaterally, without consultation — to elbow the provinces out of the driver’s seat on as sensitive an issue as training and education, they stepped into a quicksand which has claimed several governments before them. Adding the gratuitous threat of a complete shutdown in federal funds for any non-compliant provincial government was a step too far for even dependable allies such as premiers Redford and Wall. Given the angry rhetoric from some premiers on the subject, it is hard to see how Ottawa can retrieve a political win on this file either. This is Jason Kenney’s daunting task.

The most successful Canadian federal governments get a decade or so before being dismissed. In the Trudeau/Turner, Mulroney/Campbell and Chrétien/Martin cases, the dismissal was sudden and the verdict was swift: Be gone. The Harper government has been fearless, and imprudent, in its enthusiasm for antagonizing opponents — extending bizarrely this summer to the leaked memo on Nixon-style enemies lists.

Even more foolishly, it has begun to alienate its own base. The defection of a disgruntled MP is not usually a regime-shaking event. But the Senate expense scandals, followed by the sharp denunciation of the Conservative way of doing things by departing MP Brent Rathgeber, were signs of something more serious than personal pique or end-of-term fatigue.

The Harper government has been fearless, and imprudent, in its enthusiasm for antagonizing opponents … Even more foolishly, it has begun to alienate its own base.

Rathgeber’s claim that the Harper government has become the very thing that most of its zealots came to Ottawa to kill — an arrogant, entitled regime — gets repeated over and over with worried nods. Tory caucus members reported getting an earful from unhappy supporters at summer barbecues.

Stephen Harper is a political lifer. Like his now badly-shrunken inner circle of staffers, he has little experience of the outside world — unless you count his curious, brief chapter as a libertarian lobbyist at the National Citizen’s Coalition.

He is famously focused and intensely disciplined about political war games, however, and fights them with a sullen passion. If he can pull off the political trifecta he requires — trade deals, pipelines and productivity reform — Stephen Harper’s odds of making it into a second decade of power will be better than most of his predecessors.

But when you’re at the top, politics is often bitterly unfair; Harper may suffer the same fate as the three majority prime ministers before him — Trudeau, Mulroney and Chrétien. Their legacy achievements — the Charter, free trade and balancing the budget after decades of deficits — were all widely hailed as signature achievements … in their political obituaries, years after they’d left office.

Robin Sears is a well-known political commentator, a government consultant with the Earnscliffe Strategy Group, a former TV journalist and national director of the NDP who directed four campaigns for the party. Under German Chancellor Willy Brandt, he was the assistant general secretary of the Socialist International, the world’s largest community of political parties. He worked on strategic issues with leaders in Europe, Southern Africa and the Middle East. Robin was chief of staff to Ontario Premier Bob Rae during the Accord government, and Ontario’s chief trade diplomat in Asia. [email protected]

This article appeared originally in Policy, Canada’s magazine of politics and public policy.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.